Tejas – Indigenous 4+ Generation Aircraft

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited handed over the first two Tejas aircrafts to Indian Air Force which will make up the ‘Flying Daggers’ 45, the name of the first squadron of the LCA. India’s first indigenous LCA, which is all set to replace the MiG-21 series, is a result of several years of design and development work by Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and HAL. Read More

“Mission MTCR” Becomes a Reality

The accession to MTCR, after years of negotiations dating back to Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure as Prime Minister, will entitle India to “full participation” in the next plenary of the regime which will take place in Busan in South Korea in October. This comes as a boost to the Narendra Modi government which last week did not succeed in its efforts to propel India into the Nuclear Suppliers Group following stiff opposition from China. Read On

ISRO puts 20 satellites in orbit

In its thirty sixth flight (PSLV-C34), ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle successfully launched the 727.5 kg Cartosat-2 Series Satellite along with 19 co-passenger satellites today morning (June 22, 2016) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota. It is important to note that 17 co-passenger satellites were international customer satellites from Canada (2), Germany (1), Indonesia (1) and the United States (13).

Meeting Project Deadlines Differently

Anti-Collision Systems for Heavy Vehicles

Meet Shri.Nitin Shrikrishnarao Deshpande, resident of Beed district in Maharashtra state, Bharat. He is a scientist. He has designed an electronic gadget by name Anti Collision System For Heavy Vehicles. When installed, it automatically switches the headlights of the vehicle from upper to dipper mode the moment it spotsÂ another vehicle in the opposite direction at night. This yields a two-fold benefit: spotting approaching vehicle without any difficulty; better visibility of the road ahead, since the original brightness of the vehicle is automatically restored once the two vehicles cross. This gadget was one of the exhibits at the Children’s Science Congress Fair held in Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh) recently. The Indian Science Congress has selected this invention for practical application. Yes, Nitin is a schoolboy. Source: VICHAR SAMACHAR (Vishwa Samvad Kendra, Mumbai) of February 10, 2003

Venkatesh Ketakar Discovers New Plantary Body

If you look up the pages of the Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of France published in May 1911, you’d come across a paper by Venkatesh Ketakar on an as-yet unknown planetary body that was exerting a gravitational pull on the neighbouring planet Neptune. Ketakar’s paper featured orbital and other key calculations of this strange new planet. He named it Brahma. Almost 20 years later, in 1930, American scientist Clyde Tombaugh discovered it and called it Pluto. As textbooks around the world change with the recent demotion of Pluto from a planet to a `Pluton’ or a `dwarf planet’, perhaps Ketakar’s name could be added as well along with Tombaugh. A leading American college textbook Universe by Roger Freedman and William J Kaufmann III did that in 1968. The Indian Journal of History of Science recognised him in 1984. Based on a report in DNA.com by Shri. Sachin Kalbag on August 25, 2006

Innoculation against Small Pox by Dhanwantari

Dr. Edward Jenner (1749-1823) invented vaccine for smallpox in 1798. But physicians in ancient India used inoculation as a protection against small pox. His Excellency Lord Ampthill, Governor of Madras, whileopening the King’s Institute For Preventive Medicine in February 1905, said,”It is also very probable, as Colonel King assures me, that the ancient Hindusused animal vaccination secured by transmission of the small pox virus throughthe cow. He bases this interesting theory on a quotation from a text ( SaakteyaGrantah) by Dhanwantari, the greatest of the ancient Hindu physicians.It would seem from it that Jenner’s great invention was actually forestalled by the ancient Hindus”. Based on an entry INOCULATION, on page 309 of BHARATIYA VIGYAN MANJUSHA, an encyclopedia (Price: Rs. 600) by Shri.M.S. Sreedharan and published by the Publications Division, I& B Ministry,Government of India.

Paanini Methodology

The ministry of defence is working towards developing secret codes using Sanskrit (of late, spelt as Samskritam). The ‘Panini methodology’ of the language is to be applied in keeping the information under wrap. In his work Ashtaadhyayi, we find Panini’s method of coding in which maximum could be said in a little space. This involves two steps comprising a combination of 4000 sutras. First, a sutra once used in his work is never repeated, and is replaced by a code, says Dr. Prakash Pandey, assistant director for research and development, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan. Second, Panini created situation-based principles, termed adhikar sutras, wherein you find a change in code once in a few hundred words making it impossible for an intruder to comprehend anything. At this rate, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and all the hacks in Muslim countries may hasten to learn Sanskrit even before the Hindus do, to break the codes, that is! Even if a terrorist breaks a code using Panini methodology, he will not be able to decode, as he will not be in a position to decipher which code had been used for what purpose. This can really solve many problems that the ministry of defence faces for lack of a reliable coding system. Union home secretary N. Gopalaswami had announced that a software firm in Bangalore he had asked to develop a coding system after studying the methodology used by Panini, informed Dr. Pandey (Item sent in by Arun Venkataraman to Panchamritam)

How Shall We Recover our Lost Intellectual Freedom

Sri Aurobindo says " How shall we recover our lost intellectual freedom? By reversing, for the time being, the process by which we lost it, by liberating our minds in all subjects from the thralldom to authority. The Anglicized ask us to abandon authority, revolt against superstition to have free minds. What they mean is that we should renounce authority of the Vedas for Max Muller, the Monism of Sankara for the Monism of Haeckel, the dogmatisms of Pandits for the dogmatisms of European thinkers, scientists and scholars. Let us break our chains in order to be free, in the name of truth, not in the name of Europe.

Our first necessity, if India is to survive and do her appointed work in the world, is that the youth of India should learn to think, - to think on all subjects, to think independently, fruitfully, going to the heart of things, not stopped by their surface, free of prejudgments, shearing sophism and prejudice asunder as with a sharp sword, smiting down obscurantism of all kinds as with the mace of Bhima…”.